Have UKIP blundered with their new leader?
So what do we know about Lord Pearson of Rannoch?
We know he is the new leader of UKIP.
We know he has a stupid name.
We know almost 50% of UKIP members wanted him to succeed Nigel Farage.
We know he is the first peer for a century to head a major party.
We know he was made a Conservative life peer by Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
We know he had the whip withdrawn after telling voters to support UKIP in the 2004 Euro elections.
We know he was the bloke who invited Geert Wilders to Britain earlier this year to screen his contentious film about Islam.
But we also know that he’s not Nigel Farage – and we know that UKIP has meant nothing other than Nigel Farage for so long. Can someone else really pick up the mantle and run with it?
Witanagemot Blogs
Oh come on, why do you have to descend to the level of so many by stating that Pearson has a stupid name? Any different from Tory Bear?
When image is so important in politics, I actually think his rather lofty name might well exclude a few potential supporters – particularly those of a non-Conservative anti-EU perspective.
Just a hunch.
I’m sure that the lefties will jump on the fact that he is a Lord, (forgetting that so many of their own are already life peers), and seek to portray him as against the ‘egalitarian’ princilple of the EU. As for the Gert Wilders thing, hats off to the guy for not following the sheep and bending the knee to the immams. I thought we had free speech in this country, his invitation demonstrated very aptly that this is now denied to us.
Of course, we all know that the EU is just a cabal which allows the French and Germans to hold the axis of power in Europe throught a bunch of dirty backroom deals which allow money to flow to French farmers and German goods to flow everywhere because our internal markets have been reduced to EU levels of competitiveness due to harmonisation of tax and social policy.
I hope that if Lord Rannoch can be an effective leader of UKIP, it will eventually give a voice to the majority of the English who want to see the return of sovereignty to parliament, and thereby force the only credible EU opponents, the conservative party, to finally take the stand that will see us leave this corrupt Franco-German stitch up.
I’m afraid that as someone else pointed out, image is important, and he speaks terribly RP English, which will turn off a lot of potential voters.
UKIP like to describe themselves as a growing party.
Lets look at the downward spiral of UKIPs membership.
During the 2004 Euro election UKIP received a massive boost in membership with membership increasing to 26,000.
During the 2009 Euro Elections and afterwards UKIP membership has declined yet further from 14,600 to 13,400 so they received no boost and no additional income.
This would appear to indicate that most of UKIPs boost was down to anger at the MP expenses row and nothing to do with their campaign.
These are the membership figures for UKIP:-
December 2004: 26,000 (source Electoral Commission)
December 2005: 19,000 (source Electoral Commission)
December 2006: 16,000 (source Electoral Commission)
June 2007: 16,700 (source UKIP Leadership Election – membership total)
December 2007: 15,873 (source Electoral Commission)
February 2008: 14,861 (source MEP selection process – membership total)
December 2008: 14,630 (source Electoral Commission)
The BBC had turnout for the UKIP leadership election as 74%, which would put the party membership at 13,439.
UKIP have shrunk by 50% in five years.
No. He was democratically elected by a large-ish margin of members on a good turn-out, all supervised and managed by an independent third party, and that is the end of that. I’m not sure how many other parties can say this about their leaders.
Its not the membership numbers of a party that counts, its the enthusiasm of those members and the number of votes that the party may attract which is important.
As a pensioner, I have voted Tory in every election since I got the vote, but not next time. My sole political desire is to see the UK pull out of the EU. To me this is more important than the Economic situation, NHS, Crime or Schools, and while the Tories may offer the best hope in these areas, they offer me no hope whatsoever in respect of the EU.
Ted Heath lied to get us into the EU, Cameron lied about a referendum, so it is quite clear to me that the Tories won’t change.
I’m not a UKIP member, but will be voting for them next time.
Oh, and by the wy, how does membership of the Conservative party compare with that of, say, ten years ago?
“We know he has a stupid name”
No wonder the Tories aren’t doing well in my part of the United Kingdom.
He has the same name as my code-pimp (not related, tho!) so I shall not comment beyond the notion that his name is no more ridiculous than many, many others!
This is demonstrably true as both Labour and Conservatives employ call centres to make and field calls in connection with canvassing obviating the need for mass support. The caveat is that this approach failed with the top-down, cash-rich abortion that was Goldsmith’s Referendum Party. Equally smaller parties survive with less money but more supporters actually doing things like stuffing envelopes or
being abused on the doorstepcanvassing or handing out leaflets. In the US, where both are prevalent in campaigns, it was shown by Obama that swathes of volunteers trump swathes of call-centre monkeys as they tend to be 1) genuinely enthused and 2) cheaper.The short answer is no – they haven’t blundered. Cameron is the one who has made a huge miscalculation in not bringing conservatives back into the fold and in the astounding decision to throw in his lot with the Europhiles.
Whatever anyone cares to say about the above, I am a Conservative Party member and have no intention of resigning but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to say that Cameron should have had this election in the bag and now he’s looking at a hung parliament.
It is Labour’s habit to blame anyone but themselves. It seems also to be that of certain sections of the Conservative Party who would lay it on the Eurosceptics.
This section of the party has always been about and has a claim to representing true conservative values. At least they’re supporting Britain rather than selling us out.
Following my initial comment, which I am pleased to see TB appears to have accepted, it is worth making one other.
Lord Pearson is the first party leader to publicly announce that he and his party would put country before party. This surely is what all party leaders should be saying? It is unfortunately the case that party seems to come before country if the responses received so far by the Albion Alliance – http://albionalliance.org.uk/?page_id=132 – are anything to go by. It will be seen that not one MP or PPC standing at the next election has agreed to this, nor have they agreed to sign the pledge that Albion Alliance are asking for.
“We know he is the first peer for a century to head a major party.”
So he’s not a Commons expenses-guzzler.Also, the House of Lords is still a part of the UK Parliament and therefore part of our legislature.
“We know he was made a Conservative life peer by Margaret Thatcher in 1990.”
A recommendation in itself.
“We know he had the whip withdrawn after telling voters to support UKIP in the 2004 Euro elections.”
A man of principle, perhaps; rather than slavish party loyalty.
“We know he was the bloke who invited Geert Wilders to Britain earlier this year to screen his contentious film about Islam.”
He wanted to bring some truth to the debate about Islam – good for him.
“But we also know that he’s not Nigel Farage – and we know that UKIP has meant nothing other than Nigel Farage for so long.”
Only several thousand members, numerous local councillors and the equal second most highly represented party from Britain – equal with the party of government, but with more votes – 2,498,226 compared to the mighty Tories’4,198,394 and Labour’s 2,381,760. Not too shabby.
“Can someone else really pick up the mantle and run with it?”
Thousands can and will, and we will have our say, and it may be that Mister Cameron won’t get the keys to Number Ten because of the UKIP.
Not bad for a party founded in 1993.
Cameron is a mistake! He has no backbone. At least UKIP represent the people. This Tory will be voting UKIP unless the Conservatives stop being NuLabour clones!
I will not vote for an eager supporter of Dinner Table Government and climate con.
Photo-op at Remembrance Service “Hey – our most sacred dead on their most sacred day – got to be worth a few sympathy votes” virtually a resignation matter in my book.
Does he know how many votes he’s haemorrhaging
Cameron messed this up badly. The Tories clearly have no idea how strongly people feel about Europe.
He has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
At one point I honestly considered DC to be our salvation. No such luck. This smacks of “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. I won’t be voting Conservative.
I would vote for a monkey in a tutu if he/she swore an oath to get us out of the European maw.
CR.